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Sunday, 28 February 2016

Not much different to 41, eh? I like having birthdays, simply because people spoil me rotten. Mr Robot has, on occasion, told me I'm a lot like Queenie from Blackadder, and I dispute this on several fronts, not the least of which is that I'm definitely more like Nursie. On the plus side, his assumption that I am like Queenie at least means he's expecting me to bellow WHERE'S MY PRESSIE? and so buys me heaps of gifts to placate me.

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

I am in a jolly bad mood today. I found a glove on the floor, one of the Morse Code Mitts I designed myself, put it on and... full of holes. Pippin has been breaking into the coat cupboard under the stairs, so I sort of hoped that it was kitten damage, but realistically, it's moths. Cue me hauling my favourite vintage jacket out, and my bag of scarves, then all sorts of other things to check they were okay. I have a day off on Friday (it's my birthday) so that will be spent trudging up to the hardware shop to buy MORE moth repellent/killer and giving the coat cupboard a real cleaning.

Monday, 22 February 2016

I'm jolly excited because over the weekend we booked our next holiday, and it's going to be a special one.

I have two goddaughters (no, I'm not religious - I figured I could do the 'be nice to people' bit and leave the religious instruction to people who know about that sort of thing). They're the daughters of one of my oldest schoolfriends, who married an American man, and the family lives in Virginia. I promised both girls that when they turned 18 I'd take them anywhere they wanted to go in Europe. The eldest has been learning Spanish-Spanish in her spare time, and it's now her time to travel, and she picked Spain.

Mr Robot and I LOVE Spain, so it's like she's given us a massive gift in allowing us to show her some of our very favourite places. In recent years we haven't gone every year, but if we leave it too long we do start to miss the place terribly.

Sunday, 14 February 2016

Other than 'buy a minidress', that is. That's a great start, but all too often it's the end of things too.

The 1960s saw a massive diversification in styles, and even young people no longer all looked like one another (mods, rockers, hippies, you name it...). However, there are certain things that do help evoke a general 1960s look, so here are my five picks.

Friday, 12 February 2016

I had quite a tough day at work today - I've taken over making my magazine's cover disc, and once I get used to the process it will be easy but this first time was quite stressful - so it was lovely to get home to a parcel from Curtise, containing a copy of Complete Home Knitting Illustrated from 1946 and the beautiful scarf you see underneath the shoes in this picture.

The book is fascinating as it is so very practical; fashion was far less important than function at this point in history. And yet the designs are stylish, and one previous owner of the book clearly kept using it as between two pages I found a scrap of a receipt dated '...tember, 1966' and with some prices. Most of the prices are in a table. but the one at the very bottom does say, 'Allen Key, 8d each'. Sounds rather expensive for Allen keys to me, as we got a whole pack for £1 in Wilko's the other weekend. Anyway, on the back someone's written 'decreases', so it was clearly a knitter's note.

As for the scarf, isn't it a beauty? It's the perfect mallard green, with an abstract brushed pattern in black and caramel. I am already planning outfits that will show it off at its best.

And so, the shoes. If you're going to break your resolutions, you might as well do it in style.

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Ah, so late to the party on this one – but if I missed it, you might have missed it too. A couple of years ago when this album by Dutch jazz singer Caro Emerald came out, loads of bloggers raved about it and I wasn't convinced by the hype. One of Mr Robot's workmates lent it to him recently saying, “I think you'll like this, it's kind of bluesy.” Well, it wasn't bluesy but we both do like it.

Friday, 5 February 2016

I've finally finished knitting the fair isle tank top I started some months ago. You're only getting a teaser detail photo of this, because I knitted it for Cate, so I shall leave any photos of the garment in its entirety to her. It's taken longer than I'd have liked to complete, but it is all done now, before the cold weather has completely gone. As always with colourwork knitting, I hit the stage of wondering if it would ever be over, and being completely fed up of it, and then there were so many ends to weave in, but once it was done and I saw it I thought it was absolutely lovely and was ready to race on and do more colourwork.

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Bath is getting a whole weekend devoted to the Marx brothers. As the website for the Marx Brothers Weekend Festival of Britain states, "Bath, with its rich absence of any known connections to the Marx brothers, seemed the perfect place to mount the festival, and 2016 was specially chosen on the grounds that it wasn't the centenary of anything at all."

Hello!

This blog is a sort of mini-magazine about things I'm interested in, all with a vintage, alternate reality or retro-futuristic theme.
There is no commercial aspect to this blog: no sponsorship, no advertising, no affiliations. However, if you need to contact me, crinolinerobot AT yahoo DOT com is the email to use.